After Dissatisfaction, Before Goals

It's March, and it's been three months since I received my diploma. I'd enjoyed hosting trivia, driving for Uber, and substitute teaching, but in truth, I was feeling distraught. Thoughts about my future career had battered the inside of my skull for the last six months and given me no clarity. I knew I needed a job, but I had no idea what I wanted to do.

There'd been plenty of times in my life when I had no idea what I wanted. The first time I went to Baskin-Robbins. Breaking up with my middle school girlfriend for the second time. And now, living with my friend Bear in a trailer three months after graduating college without a job.

The ice cream was paralysis by analysis. The girlfriend was about avoiding hurting someone's feelings. But this time was different. I recognized that I was dissatisfied with my place in life, but I didn't want to take a job just to take a job.

So that's precisely what I did.

I received a message on LinkedIn from a recruiter about a sales position. The next week I applied, then interviewed, and within a month I'd been offered the job and accepted it.

My friends celebrated, and for a few weeks I felt excited. But even before my first day on the job, that dissatisfied feeling came creeping back into the pit of my stomach. It would stay there for the next two years.

In my rush to make progress, I chose a direction before I'd figured out where I actually wanted to go.

Dissatisfaction tells us something needs to change, and we become so eager to escape where we are that we start moving before we've figured out where we actually want to go.

The pattern is familiar: We feel dissatisfied, decide something needs to change, pick a new destination, and start moving.

I've seen friends do this recently. They'd been lifting weights for years, but when progress began to plateau, they switched to endurance racing. Others grew bored with their home, so they listed it, took on a higher interest rate, and moved to an adjacent neighborhood so everything would feel new again.

There's nothing wrong with changing course, but changing our circumstances doesn't guarantee we'll change how we feel about them. As the saying goes, "The problem with moving is we take ourselves with us."

Sometimes we need a new destination. Other times, we need to better understand what's making us want to leave the one we're at.

Movement feels like progress, but they're not always the same thing.

Dissatisfaction is diagnostic, not directional. It can tell us something isn't working, but it can't tell us what we should pursue instead.

That's why there's an important step after dissatisfaction and before goals: understanding.

Before setting a goal to change your circumstances, spend some time understanding what you're actually dissatisfied with. What isn't working? When did you start feeling this way? What would you like to experience more of? What have you tried already? You don't need to know exactly what you want yet, but you should understand the problem before prescribing yourself a solution.

I skipped that step after college. I knew I didn't want to be unemployed and living in a trailer, so when an opportunity presented itself, I grabbed it. I solved the problem I could see without taking enough time to understand the one I was actually feeling.

Sometimes dissatisfaction does point us toward a change. Take the new job. Sign up for the race. Move to a new neighborhood.

Just make sure you're not setting a goal simply because standing still feels uncomfortable.

The next time you find yourself dissatisfied with your work, fitness, relationships, or life, resist the urge to immediately ask, "What should I do?"

Start with a different question:

"What exactly am I dissatisfied with?"

You can decide where you're going once you better understand why you want to leave.

Fact

The brain tends to prefer resolving uncertainty, even when waiting could lead to a better decision. Research on the "need for closure" suggests that when people feel uncertainty or discomfort, they can become more motivated to reach a conclusion quickly.

Action

Identify one area of your life where you're dissatisfied and write down exactly what you're dissatisfied with.

Question

When have you made a change only to discover it didn't solve what was bothering you?

Quote

“Why do you wonder that globe-trotting does not help you, seeing that you always take yourself with you? The reason which set you wandering is ever at your heels.”

- Socrates, as quoted by Seneca the Younger, Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 28